Harvey, Joel Osteen, The Nashville Controversy

Turns out, every hurricane has a name! Which helps make the
catastrophe personal, I guess. Peaches tells me about the
hurricanes she remembers.

We discuss the stuff that people send to hurricane victims
that maybe hurricane victims don't actually need. It's the thought
that counts! That's true but teddy bears are still less
practical than food.

Never been in a hurricane personally but I have survived a few
tornadoes. It's important to prioritize activities during a
disaster. This is something that not everybody is good at doing.
Then Peaches tunes me out while I'm explaining this...

And Joel Osteen. I've had to defend Joel Osteen
recently. This does not please me.

One of our favorite topics come up again...the Peach's
arrogance. Then we try to figure out whether or not it's a good
idea to keep prayer small at first until you get better at
it...

Peaches tells one of my favorite stories about how she fell in
love with Luke anyway even after he destroyed her science
project.

Then, back on track...Joel Osteen has his flaws but I don't
think he actually HATES people. And I don't think he's glad Houston
was flooded.

Briefly we mention that God 'not stopping' the hurricane and
God 'causing' the hurricane are the same idea. Then we retreat from
the topic because that's a can of worms for another day.

Judging concepts is not the same a judging people. When the
goal is to discuss a principle, it doesn't matter which specific
person possesses the principle.

It seems likely that people who don't like Joel Osteen would
be critical of the poor guy not matter what he did after the
hurricane. When we start quoting the Bible to other people
without first applying it to ourselves...we should maybe, possibly,
perhaps, back up a bit.

Finally, we get around to offending our own church people. We
ask why we wouldn't employ Osteen's tactics in order to emulate his
success. C'mon, the guy is fabulously successful! Why are the
other church guys upset with him?

Sometimes, it's not Christianity that attracts people to
church.

And then the Nashville Statement. The outrage! The
shocking statement that stunned the world by declaring that
Christians get their doctrine from the Bible.

It's unbelievable!!!!

What's stunning is how many Christian (pastors!) would rather
have good relationships with sinners than tell sinners the
truth.

John Pavlovitz sounds off on the Nashville Statement because
he's much more in tune with God's thoughts than
"evangelicals"....and Scripture. (I'm not a John Pavlovitz fan
either.) Peaches keeps reading from his blog despite my desperate
pleas that she stop.